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Talk:Nova/@comment-25162335-20150201101351/@comment-25065826-20150201172717
As we board the minivans, I notice the seats are splattered with paint. I sit down, Jordan next to me, with his hood down for once. Helmets are passed around the van, and everyone seems to put them on fine. I follow everyone else, and put mine on, adjusting the strap at the back. Padding, knee and elbow pads get passed around, too. We arrive at the forest, and the people Cloner selected earlier pick up their stun rifles. They spread around the perimeter of what I can see of the forest, and the rest of us are left, with Cloner standing and shouting. "RIGHT, groups." He points at random people, and asks them to stand on one side. "The rest of you, you're group 2. I’ll be referee, this game." Two people, who apparently set up the game, step forward, and take my group to one end of the forest. We put our flag in a bush, and when we hear a faint whistle, we know the other group have done the same at their end. Now, we each get given a pistol. "It's only a paintball gun", I'm assured, and I'm given a small bag of blue pellets as well, which I clip to my waist. The other group apparently got red. "Who's having a Taser?" I hear from one of the two people who lead us to our base. Five people end up getting one, after a short argument, I count my group. There's around 30 people. "Positions!" I hear. How much needs to be done? I get pushed into defence, no-one's seen me play, and that's when I notice that Jordan is in the other group. "I can scout from above", I say to my fellow defenders, and they have no objections. Turns out, the girl who I did running with is in defence, too. She goes in defence on the ground in the centre, and when we go into positions, she asks me some questions. "So, why do you wear those glasses?" To be honest, I'd forgotten I was wearing them. I've got used to them. She obviously saw them before, I have a tinted visor over my eyes now, my glasses are in my pocket. "Oh, my eye got messed up by- Er, by the police in Africa." "You know, plenty of people here have different physical... er... appearances. Like Jordan, that guy you're friends with. You might as well just not wear them." "I feel comfortable in them. Got used to them." "You know why no-one's really friendly with him, right?" "Um... why?" "He has this stammer. And it really annoys him. He can get a bit angry about it. Plus, well, his appearance doesn't make him very approachable, either." Why would no one like a person because of a stammer, or their appearance? Even more, I haven't realised he has a stammer anyway. I mean, he doesn't talk much, but he's spoken fine each time I've spoken to him. Hmm. This girl is hard to read. To her credit, she’s honest. But maybe a bit careless of others. The whistle blows again, and a roar of battle cries come from the forest. I'm in a tree, in its highest branches, and I laugh as I hear the attackers from both sides engage on each other in around 20 seconds. They make a hell of a racket, I understand why we'd need guards from normal humans now. I'm left thinking to myself, crouching high in a tree, with the girl hiding very well behind a bush. "Can we use powers?" I ask. She looks upwards slowly, gives me possibly the funniest face I've ever seen, and nods her head slowly, like it's pretty obvious. Probably is. But hey. "In fact, when I tell you, shoot me. And when I say stop, obviously stop. You can collect your ammo back afterwards, I don’t need to pop the pellets." She says, whispering just loud enough for me to hear. "Urm… Ok… I’m guessing it’s to do with your power?" She nods, and goes back to looking for people to defend against. Minutes pass. Then, a boy enters my line of vision, and he's running straight to our flag. I'm assuming he's an opposition. I don't do anything, just keep my eyes on him, as he slows down and crouches. He looks around 16, and he hasn’t showed any signs of his power yet. Wait… it’s Jordan. His helmet is like everyone else’s, close fitting to his head and shaped to not be heavy. But it also shows where he is more than not having a helmet would. I stay in my tree, look down at the girl, and see her move her hands. ‘’He’s mine’’, she seems to be saying. Fair enough. Suddenly, Jordan is sprinting towards us. He’s damn fast. By the looks of the running, more of a sprinter, and he’s covering ground fast. “Shoot me now”, I hear from below me. I raise my gun, shoot 5 bullets at the girl. The ‘’bang’’ echoes around us. Jordan raises his head. I think we might have given ourselves away. But then, almost instantly, the sound fails. Stops, almost as if I imagined it. The bullets themselves hit her skin, but fall to the ground instantly. Not punctured, with no signs of contact at all. ‘’Like the energy just fell out of them...’’ And the girl says “If you could stop now, that will be awesome.” I really want to see what she does., so I move slightly to get a good view of her and Jordan. The girl stands, raises her hands. Jordan falters in his steps, seeing her. He smiles, like he’s been in this situation before. Then, both Jordan and the girl count using their fingers. 3, 2, 1... Jordan sprints forwards. And blasts come from the girls hands. They’re silent, but when they hit Jordan, he flies backwards, spiralling through the air and hitting the ground. Then, he’s up again, running at us. The girl now shoots a beam. It’s completely transparent, but distorts the air, and gives off a buzzing sound. Jordan jumps from its path, but stumbles and clutches his head as he keeps running. The girl fires more physical blasts, and Jordan avoids them narrowly apart from one, which scrapes his shoulder. He stumbles, and I decide to join in. I stand on a vertical tree trunk, and distort Jordan’s gravity. He stumbles, but keeps moving, and I have to try keeping up with him. I invert gravity for him, and he flies through the air. The girl can’t shoot any more projectiles, it would seem, so watches as Jordan is suspended in the air. I let go, and he tumbles to the ground. He starts laughing though. And he’s completely unharmed. But then, he’s up again. Me and the girl manage to chase him off eventually, and after 20 minutes of occasional skirmishes, we see a boy run back to our side, flag in hand. We end up actually winning. On the minibus back, talk turns to "Did you see that!" and, "Oh, I threw him about a bit", and similar topics. Jordan is smiling next to me. "You did pretty good, Niamh", he says, and something is different about him. I notice he sounds strained. I don’t know if he always sounds like it, or if I’ve just realised since the girl said something to me about his stammer. But it’s quite obvious. I guess I thought it was his accent. I smile at him. "You did well, too." I start whispering. I don’t need to, the volume would cover my speech anyway, but out of habit I do. "You know, you can speak as you find it easy." I phrased it completely wrong. Jordan looks at me sadly. "I know you have a bit of a stammer, basically." I say. He looks at me. "Nosy parker", he says. Smiles, but nowhere near happily. Apparently, he’s still keeping impressions up. He does seem to loosen up a bit, though. We get back to base, and we’re told to get back to the canteen in 10 minutes for food and a 'meeting'. I have a shower, change clothes, and head into the hall. The girl sits next to me after a few minutes. “You know, I think I could bear being your friend”, she says, in a way that’s evidently meant to make me smile. I do. "Well, I’m Taylor. And my power is Energy Absorption… the details would bore you, but basically, I can absorb energy into my body and expel it in any way I want, providing it’s the same type of energy as I absorbed. What about you?" "I’m Niamh. My power’s… gravity control, I guess." I decide I can tell her the truth. "But everyone assumes that it’s telekinesis. I can walk on walls, and other stuff, too." Jordan appears beside me. "Talking powers, are we? Well, mi-" He stops talking. Starts again. "My p-power is impenetrable skin. Qui-quite cool." There we are. He’s finally acting like himself, the strain in his voice is gone. He pulls an odd face, and looks down at his hands, in his lap. His hoods back up, too. I feel sorry for him. Hiding himself from everyone, scared of people’s opinions. And now he’s become open about one thing, he’s back in his shell about his appearance. I look to Taylor beside me – she’s looking sorry for him, too. Then, Cloner walks in. Stands at the front. "Right. EVERYONE LISTEN UP. I’m here to talk to you all about our next step of… world peace."Everyone goes silent. Apparently, there’s something I don’t know about. "As you all know, Pluto, his fellow leaders and all of ‘’you’’ are intent on making the world a more mutant-accepting society. We’ve attempted peace many times, but we’re being killed, in the hundreds, by the forces sworn to protect us, as a people. So now, we’ve turned to more forceful… persuasion. The Eiffel Tower fell as a warning. Now, we take down Mecca.” Ripples of shouts go through the crowd. And the penny drops. Suddenly, I don’t feel safe here. I’m in the midst of an extremist group. Taylor and Jordan are looking identical – scared, helpless, and distraught. Identical to almost everyone else in the room. “So from now on, for the next 10 days, we’re handing out training plans for many people in this room. You’ve been specially selected, all of you concerned, and for the rest of you, this is an update.” Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door to the canteen. Cloner sends a copy of himself to the door, opening it. A figure walks in, with a much larger one behind him. Every single person in the room gasps, except me, and some even scream. Many back away from the person, some clutching their necks. Cloner then pulls his mouth closed, smiles. “Got the message, then?” He says, with a tone of ‘yes, I’m superior to you’ underlying his words. The figure, dressed in black, loose clothing, doesn’t have a scrap of skin showing. Apart from one hand. It’s curled into a fist, but I get the impression that the hand is what everyone is scared of. “Right. Who’s the new girl!?” Cloner shouts. The cloaked person is beside him. Does he mean me? I don’t react. But when Cloner whispers to the guy, his hand unfurls; it has the mark on it, the mark on peoples necks, the mark that random people around the room are clutching, screaming. Oh my God. What’s happening? “Stand UP!” Cloner shouts. Taylor screams beside me, writhing and crying. I get the message. I stand, and Cloner gets a clone to drag me to a side door of the canteen. I’m pinned against the floor, on my back, when Cloner himself, the hooded figure and the larger guy walk in. “I think it’s time you got an actual acceptation into our… group, don’t you?” He snarls. “Time to get a scar, I think.”